Imperium Technological Decline?

[Mr Mystery]

It's also a labyrinthian hierarchy.

Plasma is likely kept to the big wigs. So whilst a Forgeworld might be capable of producing Plasma weaponry, it's only those in the upper echelons that really know what they're doing.

Think a tech based Scientology.

[Katharon]

What I mean in regards to the Executioner Plasma Cannon and the Eradicator is that, it should be far more difficult to produce a cannon that fires shells that carry a containment device for a sub-atomic (and according to Codex lore) unstable warhead than what is effectively just a rail gun putting out plasma flow.

[Nabterayl]

What I mean in regards to the Executioner Plasma Cannon and the Eradicator is that, it should be far more difficult to produce a cannon that fires shells that carry a containment device for a sub-atomic (and according to Codex lore) unstable warhead than what is effectively just a rail gun putting out plasma flow.

If you're inventing both from scratch, maybe that would be true. But you're not. Both have already been invented and produced, and then the manufacturing base for and the principles underlying both of them decayed, forgotten or distorted piecemeal, and that's where we start from. If the Eradicator cannon's manufacturing base is 70% understood and its underlying principles 65% understood, while the Executioner cannon's manufacturing base is 35% understood and its underlying principles 15% understood, then the Eradicator could well be a more common and more reliable weapon notwithstanding the fact that it is, objectively, a more complicated technology to invent, produce, and maintain.

[Houghten]

I'm not actually convinced the Eradiator nova cannon is a miniature version of the Naval nova cannon in the first place. The Mars-pattern nova cannon fires really really big conventional explosives (other patterns fire anything from plasma charges to implosion warheads, but I don't see atomics mentioned anywhere), whereas as you've previously mentioned the Eradicator fires a sub-atomic charge.

Know what it does look like a miniature version of? The Hellhammer cannon. And it's clearly intended to be one, with the whole Ignores Cover thing it's got going on, and the Hellhammer is also described as using atomic charges, but what I don't get (fluffwise) is why it's so weak. The Hellhammer cannon is stronger and AP-ier than a Baneblade cannon, albeit with a shorter range and smaller blast. The Eradicator nova cannon is also shorter-ranged than a battle cannon, but is weaker and less AP-y. It has a clear game purpose - clearing light troops off cover, rather than being better at Demolisher cannonning than a Demolisher cannon - but I'm left wondering why they bothered drawing the Hellhammer parallels.

[steelmage99]

- but I'm left wondering why they bothered drawing the Hellhammer parallels.

Because the GW Design Studio has an almost dogmatic almost STC-like tradition for doing so (just like the AdMech)?

[euansmith]

"...there would have been a distinct possibility that the British Navy would have lost at Waterloo."

I presume you mean Trafalgar. The British Navy would have found itself at a distinct disadvantage fighting the French at Waterloo

I certainly agree with YorkNecromancer on the information issue. The size of the Imperium is not made very clear. The fluff mentions billions of people and millions of stars, but this is rather small for a "Galactic Empire". Even if they only controlled 1% of the systems in the Milky Way, the Imperium would contain 3 billion stars. If the population only averaged 1 billion souls per star system (a very low level of settlement), there would be around 3 quintillion (3,000,000,000,000,000,000) humans.

With such a vast population spread over such an immense volume of space, it would be possible for pretty much any technological level to exist somewhere in the Imperium. From feral worlds living in the Stone Age to technocracies sporting person android servants and anti-gravity cocktail shakers. Hi-tech civilizations would be likely to use their technology to leverage political power, limiting access to their technological marvels. This would exacerbate the tendency for information to become lost to large parts of the Imperium. Maybe the Leman Russ Executioners are manufactured and maintained by citizens of one of these hi-tech enclaves.

[Katharon]

I presume you mean Trafalgar. The British Navy would have found itself at a distinct disadvantage fighting the French at Waterloo

And then wouldn't that have been a sight -- Marshal Ney's cavalry charging headlong -- into the side of a ship and hacking at it with their sabers! :P

With such a vast population spread over such an immense volume of space, it would be possible for pretty much any technological level to exist somewhere in the Imperium. From feral worlds living in the Stone Age to technocracies sporting person android servants and anti-gravity cocktail shakers. Hi-tech civilizations would be likely to use their technology to leverage political power, limiting access to their technological marvels.

That is pretty much word-for-word the actual fluff for the Imperium...but it still doesn't excuse the fact that Mars itself should be just fine at producing the stuff -- and I assume that they do.

[euansmith]

And then wouldn't that have been a sight -- Marshal Ney's cavalry charging headlong -- into the side of a ship and hacking at it with their sabers! :P

You know when they say, "You couldn't make this stuff up"?

Well, as every, history is always more bizarre and amazing than fiction

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Dutch_fleet_at_Den_Helder[/url]

As for the 40k Fluff, I really think that GW's writers massively underestimate the scale of the Galaxy

[Nabterayl]

That is pretty much word-for-word the actual fluff for the Imperium...but it still doesn't excuse the fact that Mars itself should be just fine at producing the stuff -- and I assume that they do.

Well yeah, they do. It seems pretty clear that Mars itself can make everything in the Imperial arsenal (or at least knows how to make it, whether or not they have the physical plant on-planet for every single piece of tech). But it's also clear that Mars doesn't disseminate its knowledge to just anybody. The goal of the Adeptus Mechanicus, after all, is not to equip the Omnissiah's armies. The goal of the Adeptus Mechanicus is to know stuff, in a creepy Scientology sort of prove-you're-worthy-of-this-knowledge-because-you-can't-handle-the-truth sort of way.

The central feature of the Cult Mechanicus is the Quest for Knowledge. In the context of their religion, knowledge isn't a commodity to be disseminated - it's a treasure to be earned. So Mars isn't even trying to disseminate its knowledge to every magos it can. Yes, they grant STC blueprints to vassal forge worlds (for a price), and yes, they teach (some people), but "Do our damndest to sure every magos knows everything we have to teach him or her, even if the size of our organization makes that impossible" isn't even on their to-do list.

[bfmusashi]

Mars is a complicated place. You can lose production facilities to clerical error, booby-traps, Heresy era killbots, and lesser internal schisms.